Every day this week, we are going to look at some disturbing footage from ESOAL (the event based on Navy Seals hell week).
In an attempt to instill humility and rid interns of the “fear of man,” some male interns are required to wear very feminine dresses and headbands throughout ESOAL. But that alone is not enough, they also have to act like a women: walking like a model on a catwalk or cheering like a cheerleader.
In this video, the faciliator makes the intern scream, “I am not a man!” Listen to see why the intern feels this way. It is hearbreaking.
In this last clip, fast forward to the end to to see that while David Hasz opens the lid of a large box to let two girls climb out, he remarks, “Thanks for wearing your earrings. We appreciate a little lady like behavior at ESOAL.”
UPDATE: I forgot to add this video which shows a girl getting her braids chopped off.
So, men are supposed to be shamed into dressing and acting like women. Women are treated like dirt, screamed at, have their hair chopped off and not given the dignity of wearing a tampon if they are on their period…but wearing earrings is good so that they can be ladylike.
Huh?
(For the purposes of this discussion, let’s assume that the men being forced to wear women’s clothes are heterosexual, since Teen Mania certainly assumes that.)
45 comments:
Wow. This may help to explain the particular strain of misogyny I’ve noticed in acquaintances who attended Teen Mania/HA/etc.
Because it’s a great shame to be compared to a woman. Disgusting.
This is Sadism.
Dave Hasz is a Sadist.
Honor Academy is Sadistic.
This is disturbing on so many levels.
Not only is this hurtful and demeaning to men, it is degrading to women.
yes because an arbitrary act of getting a needle shoved through your skin in a predetermined place and placing metal objects in that hole is a sign of being lady like. Also Being lady like in a place where you have vomit in your hair is theoretically important to your witness? Um NO!
How were they trying to “stretch” these guys? What was there goal? Were they trying to make them feel weak (because women are supposedly weak)? What were they trying to accomplish?
This is a bigger deal than a “Powder Puff” football game or something like that were people are being funny and enjoying it for recreation.
This goes far beyond that. I hope the readers of this blog can understand the significance of the abusive tactics used on the interns during ESOAL.
Strike the “Powder Puff football” remark. I never liked that either.
A shiny nickel to the first person who can find a quote from Dave Hasz complaining about “the feminization of the church.”
Thinks a Lot – several recent interns told me it was so the male interns would learn “humility” and overcome the “fear of man.”
I think they are confused… humbling yourself before God and being humiliated are too very different things. Buncha bullies.
RA ~ TM gets more and more messed up as they go along. I can’t in any way understand how this could teach a person “humility” or help them “overcome” anything. I CAN understand their thinking though because of being involved with TM for so many years. I can get why they would think this is ok (after knowing all they teach about their false idea of humility and perserverence.) I hear their justification of this and it just makes me sad.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humiliation
Read this, see the common points to the above, and be very, very afraid. They even mention “hell week” as an example.
Some Quotes:
“Whereas humility can be sought alone as a means to de-emphasise the ego, humiliation must involve other person(s), though not necessarily directly or willingly. Acting to humiliate yourself may be linked to a personal belief (as with mortification of the flesh, with some religions), or it can be part of erotic humiliation where the belittling activity provides emotional and/or sexual arousal or heightened sensation.”
“The humiliation need not be sexual in itself, as with many other sexual activities it is the feelings derived from it which are sought, regardless of the nature of the actual activity. It can be verbal or physical, and can be relatively private or public.”
“Hazing is an often ritualistic test and a task, which may constitute harassment, abuse or humiliation with requirements to perform random, often meaningless tasks, sometimes as a way of initiation into a social group. The definition can refer to either physical (sometimes violent) or mental (possibly degrading) practices […] Often most or all of the endurance, or at least the more serious ordeal, is concentrated in an orgiastic collective session, which may be called hell night, or prolonged to a hell week and/or retreat or camp […] Hazing is often used as a method to promote group loyalty and camaraderie through shared suffering (male bonding in fraternities), either with fellow participants, past participants or both.”
“…there is a gray area where exactly the other side passes over into sheer degrading, even harmful abuse that should not be tolerated even if accepted voluntarily (serious but avoidable accidents do still happen; deliberate abuse with similar grave medical consequences occurs, in some traditions rather often).”
“Examples of hazing, often performed in combination, include […] being hosed by sprinkler, buckets or hoses; covered with dirt or with (sometimes rotten) food […] being made to eat or drink too much (to the point of intoxication and vomiting); wearing humiliating clothing […] performing calisthenics and other physical tests.”
(“We do not haze at Teen Mania. In fact we don’t even want to be involved in anything that could be confused with hazing.” –Dave Hasz)
WHAT THE FUCK???????????
My head hurts. I can’t stop cussing.
This is so…..
sooooooooo
s;alkjfo[aiuwero[ihq;w3klenfa’lsjkefoaihweotao[seihgali
So wrong!!!!!!!
I’m so pissed.
Maybe this cross dressing is what “Bi-Winning” is all about. Doesn’t this seem like what Hasz must think about himself?
http://www.youtube.com/user/schmoyoho#p/a/u/0/9QS0q3mGPGg
mouse out-
Eric just drove it home!!
Cult
Sickening on so many levels.
I suppose I am not lady like because I don’t wear earrings.
This is so heartbreaking. It makes me want to weep. I cannot believe that I was ever affiliated with a group of people who bring shame and humiliation upon others… all in the the name of Christ.
God’s true character is to build up, to love, to bring peace, to bring hope, to accept.
I find it quite interesting that they spend so much time telling ladies how to be ladies throughout your time at the HA… and then make being ladylike a shameful activity for the men.
A disgrace.
WTF.
Disturbing stuff. It is out and out hazing.
Not to meantion the put down of females.
My prayers are with all of you that have suffered through this hell.
This is unbelievably ignorant, but continues to show how uninformed, unintelligent, and uneducated the staff at Teen Mania is. Emotional abuse with a misogynist, sexist message.
Foolish.
O simple ones, learn prudence. Of fools, learn sense.
Proverbs 8:5
Proverbs 10:23
Doing wrong is a joke to a fool, but wisdom is pleasure to a man of understanding.
Where are the lawsuits?
My ears aren’t pierced, but my nose is
D. Hasz, you’re a creep.
This is so disgusting. I mean truly disgusting. I cannot help but think about how Jesus treated women (and men) and it was nothing like this. NOTHING. Loving people the way Jesus did is about respecting them, restoring honor and bringing them to a place where they realize their need for God. This doesn’t do any of that. I cannot believe people are treated like this in the name of God. It’s shameful.
I cried when the young man had to say he is not a man because he failed. Isn’t the whole point of ESOAL to rely on God? this is just wrong
Sad to say that I facilitated that ESOAL and knew many of those faces, and even called some of them (one participant and one facilitator in particular) dear friends. I think I had blocked out how truly terrible it was…
superficial point given the entirety of the post, but how messed up is it to hack off a girl’s braid for the hell of it?
I’m with Shiloh, WTF is all I can say about these posts anymore.
I have been avoiding watching these afraid of the feelings they would trigger. But I watched them today. I am absolutely disgusted and I am heartbroken for these people. This is twisted and evil and Dave Hasz is one sick fuck.
Wait.
There’s another lie!
I distinctly remember, for the ESOAL Banquet in 2007, that Dave Hasz stood before us and specifically told us, “Don’t tell anybody, but for ESOAL, we never cut a lady’s hair”.
That’s a paraphrase, but I do remember him saying that it was a secret (before this, us girls were afraid of getting our hair hacked off lol).
Then again, they do not actually show the braid being CUT. Just the scissors resting around said braid.
So either way YAY MINOR DETAILS
Nunquam – Interesting. Well, this video is from the year before that…surely somebody out there helped make this video or knows the girl with the braids and can let us know if the hair was actually cut…Either way, TM clearly wanted people to THINK that girls were getting their hair chopped off otherwise why would he say “Don’t tell!”
Wow.
I think Dave honestly has some twisted pent up sexual issues. I mean… I really do think that. I would not be surprised to hear (yet deeply grieved) that him or others in leadership have had sex with interns. (oh wait! We’ve already found out Dave was cool with one staff member having sex with the girls…) I have run out of excuses for any one who supports T.M.
oh and this is so effed up! They get off on this! This is nothing but a power trip. How else do you justify treating your brothers and sisters like crap??? and in the video with the coffin!!!! FUCK! the interns are actually tormenting their own friends!!! Isn’t that what they’re doing???? the girls are in a box and everyone is hitting the top of it to try and scare them!!!! So the interns ARE being brainwashed so much so to go against their own moral code and torment their friends because leadership is telling them to.
They’re so twisted in their thought process at this time they are just doing whatever their told not even concidering if it’s right or wrong and if they do see this is wrong they aren’t doing anything about it!!!! FUCK!!!!
No the interns should be stopping this! If T.M. was preaching a true gospel Esoal would not be happening. T.M. is preaching a doctrine of demons. “For if anyone preaches a different gospel than I’ve taught you whether it be man or an angel from heaven let him be accursed.”
I personally know both of those men. One was my CA and one worked with me. He is a man. A good man.
Just a note… That big box in the video was not the coffin. It was more of a solitary confinement prison box that they would put multiple people in at once. The coffin really was a coffin, buried into the ground, with only enough room for one person to lay flat with her arms at her sides… with a few large cockroaches tossed in.
Lauren – thank you for the clarification! I will update the post.
Nunquam Honorablus, I completely remember ESOAL 2007 where all of the girls were afraid of getting their hair cut off. I even remember the ESOAL banquet where Dave Hasz lied to us and said that no girl would ever have their hair cut off. Wow. just wow.
This is completely disgusting.
As a parent of a former intern, I have a question. Did they make everyone get in the coffin? What about those who had a loved one who had died within the last few years? That kind of thing would be incredibly traumatic! Not to say that it wasn’t for everyone else. That type of confinement for anyone would be traumatic even in a box, let alone a real coffin! And in the ground?! Seriously! Sounds like the “idea” of someone who has not had to go through the death of a loved one, particularly as a young person.
Anonymous, that is a great point. I do not believe that every intern had to get in the coffin. I’m not sure how they selected those who did. Perhaps Lauren will chime in.
they didn’t cut her hair. She is in the photos taken of people who finished esoal… with all of her hair.
Anon- Still for some people (and I was one of them) the idea of cutting my hair was something that would have not only terrified me but at the time it would have have had in relationship to belief and not altering God’s creation. IF they would have threatened that I likely would have questioned even sooner than I did if God even knew anyone at that place.
Anon 6:12–In that case, it’s a form of psychological torture: think a slightly milder version of mock execution.
@Anonymous 3/23 1:42 – Not everyone had to get in the coffin. Just a select few, dependent totally on the whim of the facilitator. I don’t know anyone personally who was subjected to the coffin after the death of a loved one. But I will say that I have always experienced extreme claustrophobia from an abusive situation as a child. So the coffin was one of the most detrimental acts I could have been forced into. And the experience wasn’t just traumatic for me in the coffin. My teammates were forced to close the lid and throw dirt on the coffin to give a “burial” effect, and they seemed pretty torn up about the act afterward.
I haven’t been on this site in quite some time now and generally don’t care about most of the topics.
However,having just watched this – WOW. I am at a loss for words. I am heartbroken and had a hard time fighting tears as I watched this.
Unbelievable. Devastating. So damaging.
Esoal is not what it used to be, that is for sure. In 2001, it was physically/mentally challenging with some gross food, but whatever, it wasn’t abuse. I am just shocked at what it has become.
And the poor interns inflicting this. They are still so young and almost certainly do not fully grasp the extent of the damage they are causing in these young people’s lives.
Man. I am just so sad right now…
What happened to good, old-fashion loving God, reading the word, discussing/debating biblical issues and how they are releveant in the world today???
WHAT is the motive of tormenting these young people who are entrusting their hearts, minds and emotions into the leaders of this “emotional stretching opportunity of a lifetime”?????? I am appaled.
The girls hair was cut — i know her — and her personal website has pictures of it being done.
http://www.facebook.com/#!/photo.php?fbid=4391336653&set=a.4328916653.296.500046653&type=1&theater
shortly after esoal there are pictures posted of her much shorter hair…
Anon – That link isn’t viewable – probably because we aren’t facebook friends with her. Would you ask her to contact me in order to verify the story? Thanks!
@ANON 4:24 I know her too. She cut her hair after ESOAL. If you look at photo 31 of the same album of the link you posted she is finishing esoal with all of her hair.
Yeah… I know her too.. there are pictures of her at the ESOAL banquet with all her hair! haha.
Dont be alarmed people. NO ONE cut hair during ESOAL.